In The Passionate Teacher, Ron Fried describes the Game of School (GOS) as what happens when teachers and students forsake intellectual work and instead engage in their classes as rituals. Take this opportunity to consider this chapter in light of some of the the other experiences that you've had this semester to answer at
least three of the following questions:
What elements of the game of school are you seeing in your placements?
How have you seen teachers fight the game of school in their classes?
What features can you plan into your units that might discourage the GOS?
Finally, what impact will this description of the GOS have on your own approach to teaching as expressed in your teaching philosophy?
I have seen the GOS in both of my placements. In my high school placement the worst example was a 6 page (3 page front and back) worksheet full of questions on the history of the zoo. This is in an environmental science class that went on a field trip to the zoo. They already spent a week on the history of the zoo. When I saw the students working on this worksheet the teacher was going over it and students were filling in all of the answers that they had not yet filled in. I believe that this assignment is pure busy work and must have been horribly boring not to mention it lacked science content. In my middle school the teacher plows through the curriculum doing the same that has always been done. This school district has everyone do very similar things. From the students I see kids that come to class without a pencil and rather than ask a friend or the teacher to borrow one they sit there and do nothing. There are also students who continuously disrupt class so that other kids don’t have the chance to learn because the teacher cannot get through all the material with all of the interruptions.
To some degree I can understand how GOS starts. Teachers are overworked without the resources they need. ELL classes without enough simplified textbooks and without any teaching assistance. It creeps in because there is not enough time in the day. Students are bored out of their mind and quickly figure out what is needed to get a grade that is good enough for them. I have even played this game as a student. I start out in a class so excited and ready to learn and make connections but eventually I get discouraged or find the class boring and I revert to just doing enough.
My primary weapon against GOS will be relevance. It is my goal to really try to make science relevant to students. Twice a semester I would like to have discussions with my students on a topic of the classes’ choice. It will be related to science but does not need to be directly related to our units. As a class we can brainstorm different topics and then vote as a class to select one. Students will then submit questions about what they want to know about the topic. I will then find some readings and prepare 1 day of science background knowledge that I will teach to the students. Then students will do the readings I supply them. They also have the opportunity to do their own research if they want. After the background science day we will have a Socratic discussion on the topic. Students use info from the reading and the background science I give them to talk about the subject. The final part of the assignment will be for students to write an essay on how this topic is relevant to their lives. Hulleman & Harackiewicz (2009), found that students that write about how what they are learning is relevant to them do better in science classes. This was particularly true with students that had low expectations of success in the class. The down side to science is sometimes you have to learn some tedious stuff before you get to the really interesting things. I am going to try to shorten the tedious part and find ways to teach the interesting relevant parts particularly to lower level students. This type of topic based teaching would be perfect for the environmental science class that spent a week on the history of the zoo. Classes like that one where there is no set curriculum and has low level, low expectation for success students, is where teaching topics that interest the students could make an impact
Relevance is already part of my teaching philosophy but after reading about GOS it will definitely remain as part of my philosophy and may move up in importance. As I teacher I can’t change the number of students in my class or the focus on standardized tests. I can try to find a school that will give me the liberty to try to make the class relevant even if it does not fit in the curriculum.
least three of the following questions:
I have seen the GOS in both of my placements. In my high school placement the worst example was a 6 page (3 page front and back) worksheet full of questions on the history of the zoo. This is in an environmental science class that went on a field trip to the zoo. They already spent a week on the history of the zoo. When I saw the students working on this worksheet the teacher was going over it and students were filling in all of the answers that they had not yet filled in. I believe that this assignment is pure busy work and must have been horribly boring not to mention it lacked science content. In my middle school the teacher plows through the curriculum doing the same that has always been done. This school district has everyone do very similar things. From the students I see kids that come to class without a pencil and rather than ask a friend or the teacher to borrow one they sit there and do nothing. There are also students who continuously disrupt class so that other kids don’t have the chance to learn because the teacher cannot get through all the material with all of the interruptions.
To some degree I can understand how GOS starts. Teachers are overworked without the resources they need. ELL classes without enough simplified textbooks and without any teaching assistance. It creeps in because there is not enough time in the day. Students are bored out of their mind and quickly figure out what is needed to get a grade that is good enough for them. I have even played this game as a student. I start out in a class so excited and ready to learn and make connections but eventually I get discouraged or find the class boring and I revert to just doing enough.
My primary weapon against GOS will be relevance. It is my goal to really try to make science relevant to students. Twice a semester I would like to have discussions with my students on a topic of the classes’ choice. It will be related to science but does not need to be directly related to our units. As a class we can brainstorm different topics and then vote as a class to select one. Students will then submit questions about what they want to know about the topic. I will then find some readings and prepare 1 day of science background knowledge that I will teach to the students. Then students will do the readings I supply them. They also have the opportunity to do their own research if they want. After the background science day we will have a Socratic discussion on the topic. Students use info from the reading and the background science I give them to talk about the subject. The final part of the assignment will be for students to write an essay on how this topic is relevant to their lives. Hulleman & Harackiewicz (2009), found that students that write about how what they are learning is relevant to them do better in science classes. This was particularly true with students that had low expectations of success in the class. The down side to science is sometimes you have to learn some tedious stuff before you get to the really interesting things. I am going to try to shorten the tedious part and find ways to teach the interesting relevant parts particularly to lower level students. This type of topic based teaching would be perfect for the environmental science class that spent a week on the history of the zoo. Classes like that one where there is no set curriculum and has low level, low expectation for success students, is where teaching topics that interest the students could make an impact
Relevance is already part of my teaching philosophy but after reading about GOS it will definitely remain as part of my philosophy and may move up in importance. As I teacher I can’t change the number of students in my class or the focus on standardized tests. I can try to find a school that will give me the liberty to try to make the class relevant even if it does not fit in the curriculum.